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Wednesday, November 09, 2005

According to the Wayzata School District web site, district voters re-elected Carter Peterson and John Moroz, and elected new board member Susan Droegemueller to replace the retiring Connie Doepke, to four-year terms on the Board of Education.

In my opinion, board candidate Audie Tarpley had the strongest resume by virtue of his membership on the district's Legislative Action Committee and Citizens Financial Advisory Council. But Droegemueller, an attorney and Judicial Clerk for the Hennepin County District Court, is a reserve teacher and volunteer in the schools, among many other qualifications listed on her web site. I think the web site deserves some credit for Droegemueller's win. It's so difficult to vet these candidates from just their brief Sun Sailor writeups and last week's candidate forum. Lots of voters were surfing the web up to Election Day in search of information on these candidates.

Tarpley should run again. I supported current board member Gary Landis during his first run for the board, which he lost. He ran again and won.

Voters also passed the two levy referendum questions. The first, for general education revenue to be used to reduce class sizes, passed by 12 percentage points. The second, a capital project levy for technology, passed by 6 percentage points. Wayzata is a well-run district with plenty of citizen oversight, and they made a detailed case for the two levy questions early and often with district residents (credit to district communications coordinator Steve Brantner, and the volunteer Vote Yes committee).

Several thousand votes were cast, in a school district that touches all or part of eight west metro suburbs, including Plymouth and Wayzata. The relatively few voters voting demonstrates the importance of voter education and GOTV efforts in these school district elections.

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